


Mammoth

by ndnickerson



Category: Nancy Drew - Keene
Genre: Angry Sex, F/M, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Rough Sex, Sex Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-28
Updated: 2009-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-05 10:29:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ndnickerson/pseuds/ndnickerson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>CIA Agent Drew runs into an old boyfriend: FBI Special Agent Ned Nickerson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mammoth

**Author's Note:**

> This is the full, uncensored version.

Nancy Drew poured herself a styrofoam cup of coffee at the littered beverage table, idly tapping in a sachet of artificial sweetener and a serving of creamer. Her eyelashes still felt practically glued together, and from the nonverbal grunts the rest of the attendees were exchanging, she wasn't the only one still mostly asleep this early on a Saturday morning. Liberated from their usual suits and ties, the agents slumped in their chairs around the room, clipped badges and company-issue guns gleaming in the fluorescents, stifling yawns at each other.

Quarterly World Issues Update. The title card of the PowerPoint presentation stood in bland stark relief on the hanging, discolored screen. Nancy rolled her eyes and dropped into a chair, waiting for their doubtless incredibly boring lecturer to take the stage. Being here felt like college, the academy, and brought its own sense of restlessness and ill ease. She uncapped her pen and began to draw boxes down the margin of her notepad, wishing that Susan would show up and take a seat near her so they could play some furtive and utterly serious game of tic-tac-toe, or just keep each other from dozing off and loudly crashing to their unforgiving desks. Nancy barely granted the lecturer the bat of an eyelash as he ascended and made his hesitant introductions. They were always better at facts than mundane trivia like their own names, she thought sourly to herself.

"How many of you are from the FBI? Just a show of hands."

At that, Nancy brought her head up, suddenly intrigued. Maybe a third of the room was unfamiliar to her, and those were the ones who raised their hands, guys in loose polos and khakis with their hair trimmed just-so and women whose only concession to fashion was to pull their loose ponytails through the backs of ballcaps. Just like college.

"And how many CIA?"

Nancy raised her hand, turning her attention back forward, when her gaze caught with that of a guy just lowering his own. It took every bit of her self-control not to do a double-take, even as she saw the spark of recognition in his eyes.

Ned Nickerson.

The lights went off and the show started, and Nancy took it in without hearing any of it, scanning the maps and the fact sheets while her mind raced down an entirely different path.

They hadn't seen each other in years. He had been distant, cooling, and then she had come back from Paris and had confessed yet another bout of mutual attraction with Frank Hardy, and Ned, infinitely tired, infinitely resigned, had told her that he wanted nothing but happiness for her, and that they should take some time apart. To think about things. She knew that meant to decide, once and for all, how she felt about Frank.

Their breakup hadn't been tidy, not in the least. Not as far as she was concerned. They had lost their virginity to each other, one desperate fumbling night, and their relationship had been incredibly complicated after that. The shift meant she wasn't just breaking dates to pursue cases, she was spending time they could have been having sex on cases. His jealousy reached epic, but not horrific, proportions. She spent less time with her friends and more time reassuring him, more time with him, than she ever had before. While she'd never allow herself to believe that taking that step with him had been a mistake, because she loved him and knew he loved her and that nothing would ever change it, it still felt like some horrible tight net around them both.

So once she was free, she rebounded immediately to Frank, and within two weeks they knew that it just wouldn't work. By then the bridges were burned, and the few times she'd tried to go out with Ned, as "friends," after, had been quiet unmitigated disasters. They weren't meant to be friends. And Ned, who had been drifting for months, just slipped gently off her radar, and in the private cool space of her head she had to admit she was glad, to not have that perpetual reminder of guilt and lost chances. Childhood sweethearts were never meant to stay together, anyway. She'd known that all along.

Nevertheless, when the lights went up for their break, they practically made a beeline to each other.

"So this is where you went when you fell off the face of the earth?" she greeted him with a smile, and when he opened his arms she didn't hesitate to walk into them for a brief, almost perfunctory hug.

"Yeah. Got recruited." He shrugged, making a gesture that included the whole room. "Right now, I can't think of why it's worth it."

"The great benefits," she teased him. "So how are you, really?"

He was looking at her shirt. Or her breasts, although he'd never been this overt about his ogling when they had been dating. Nancy glanced down and felt her cheeks warm, just a little. She'd grabbed one of his old Emerson sweatshirts when she'd dressed, half asleep, a few hours before.

"Not too bad," he replied, before glancing up to meet his eyes. "We have a nice apartment on the other side of town. Not a bad neighborhood."

She nodded. He said "we" breezily. So it meant girlfriend. Her stomach, inexplicably, felt like lead.

"I can't say ours is in a good neighborhood," she smiled, "but it works. You should really come over for dinner sometime."

She caught the very brief flicker of his eyes to her bare left hand. She was pretty sure he hadn't caught it when she'd done the same to him.

"Yeah, we really should." She heard the slight emphasis on the second word. "I'll call you. We can figure something out."

The lecturer called the end of break and Nancy headed back to her seat, slowly. He hadn't asked for her number. So he was just being nice.

She felt a little relieved, and a little sad.

During the drive home after she turned up the radio and tapped the steering wheel in time, moving through the congested traffic on autopilot, her blue eyes unseeing on the road ahead. Ned had vanished after their breakup. During a case at Emerson, a little while after, she had knocked on his door at the fraternity with her heart in her throat, only to have her knock answered by a nerdy sophomore and his room full of AV equipment. Ned had already disappeared into local mythos, victim of a broken pro contract, a reborn prophet, a student at a secret star-making camp somewhere in the deserts of the southwest. She'd checked the driveway at his parents' house anyway, but his car wasn't there.

She hadn't looked too hard. She had never been sure what she'd say if she found him. Being in CIA had virtually guaranteed that their relationship would just have been harder.

"Hey babe," she called, against the chatter of the television, when she entered their small apartment, tossing her keys on the kitchen counter and ducking into the refrigerator. The broadcast sound of sports fans cheering answered her, until she heard the indecipherable mumble of his response from the living room. She tore the foil lid off a carton of yogurt, licked it, and kicked off her shoes before padding in that direction.

"How was it?" Brian asked.

"Boring," Nancy sighed, throwing herself into his lap so her back was braced against one arm of the recliner and her legs were folded over the other. "And highly classified. Just don't forget to fill your gas tank up before tomorrow." She licked the back of her spoon in a flirty way.

"Thanks," he half-smiled, pressing a distracted kiss against her cheek as the broadcast started again.

After she finished her yogurt, Nancy nestled into Brian's chest, content. It was unusual for the two of them to have a Saturday together, without his having to pull a double shift or get called in on some trauma cases. She was about to ask where he wanted to go for dinner when his phone started ringing, and they rolled their eyes simultaneously. Nancy pushed herself off his lap in a smooth movement, watching him mouthe his apologies and pull his faces as he reached for his sneakers.

"Sorry, babe."

"Sorry," she sighed, to his retreating back. She loved the money he made, she loved him, she loved their apartment, but their life was a logistical nightmare. They'd probably spent forty-eight uninterrupted and consecutive hours together in the course of their relationship. She could never run out of things to say because they were never together long enough for her to say everything. Or anything.

She looked down at the frayed and battered Emerson sweatshirt and realized that Ned had probably felt this way the entire time, and that Brian had never asked her where this particular item of clothing had come from.

She sighed and stripped it off before heading to the freezer, to shuffle through the lowfat offerings for a hunk of flavorless lasagna, to be topped off with a glass from a dusty bottle of aged merlot.

They took Sunday lunch at her father's house, but it was mainly for her benefit. He started behind her, in his own car, and when he peeled off, gunning for an exit, she sighed. In the past month he'd only made it as far as the outskirts of River Heights before he'd been called back. She'd almost think he was having an affair, if she didn't keep him very satisfied in bed.

"He didn't make it, again?" Hannah raised a disapproving eyebrow as she met Nancy at the door.

Nancy shrugged, warning Hannah with her expression to keep from reviving this argument, and Hannah backed off. "Hi Dad," she called, reaching down to give her father a half-hug as he sat on the couch, flipping through the morning newspaper.

"And how's my girl?"

"Pretty good," she replied. "Can't complain. You'll never guess who I ran into yesterday."

"Is it classified?" Carson Drew carried the stack of plates over to the table while Nancy went through the silverware drawer, and the two set the table swiftly.

"Ned."

"Now there's a boy who never turned down my cooking," Hannah called, archly.

"Is he in CIA?" Carson asked, with some surprise.

"No, we had one of those boring equal-opportunity briefings, and he was there. With the FBI."

"I haven't seen him in... well, it must be years."

"Me either," Nancy said, folding the napkins. "He seems to be doing well."

Hannah came in carrying the pot roast, and the Drews knew better than to talk in the presence of greatness. Even so, Nancy's father only made the lightest inquiry about Brian, when they were talking after the meal. Nancy knew her father didn't approve of her living with him, although when they were together he had been perfectly warm and friendly. She was almost convinced the two of them had a tacit agreement that he would propose to Nancy at some point, or Carson would have all his fingers broken.

It was a nice feeling, really.

She was assigned to a detail providing security at a reception in Washington the following weekend. When she unpacked her dress wasn't the right one, and seemed to have shrunk the last time she washed it. She put her hair up in a long sophisticated ponytail and set out in pumps, carrying a clutch, her earpiece practically invisible. During a break she called Brian, who promised he would show her just how much he missed her when she got home, then went back to his own rounds.

It was after that, after the guests had stopped arriving and the alcohol was flowing freely, that she felt the unease ripple through the rest of the security force. With all the dignitaries here, it was easy to feel paranoid, sure that someone was going to take the opportunity to knock out some of the key members of the House. For her part, Nancy tightened her grip on her gun and checked out everything that seemed even vaguely suspicious, the caterer whose face she couldn't quite remember or the pop of another bottle of champagne being uncorked.

On her second pass she caught sight of Ned. He stuck out like a sore thumb in his jeans and sweatshirt, and his jaw was tight. Without stopping to think she intercepted him, her eyebrow raised. He didn't look happy to see her.

"Something going on?"

"Had to get an asset out," he said, quietly, resting a hand on her upper arm to gently guide her out of his path, and she stood and watched him go. A knot of unobtrusive agents led another figure out a side door, and Nancy sighed as the chatter in her earphone informed her of what Ned had just told her.

When the guests started to leave Nancy slipped into the stream, scanning the perimeter and finding a classic unmarked van. She approached it, clothing herself in convincing uncertainty, and when she retreated she was pleasantly surprised to find Ned at her elbow five minutes later.

"Everything's okay now."

Nancy nodded. "Did you mean it when you said we should get together for dinner?"

She watched his expression go from intense to irritated to something approaching amusement. "I guess I did."

"It's not like I have your number."

Ned snorted. "You work for CIA. Four keystrokes and you'd have my number."

"That's not the same," she said quietly, and after a beat he dropped his gaze and nodded.

"So who will you be bringing with you?"

"Danny," Ned replied, and something in her expression must have shown the shock and growing doubt in her because he laughed. "Danielle."

"For a minute there, I thought I'd turned you gay," she heard herself say, then shook her head. "Sorry. That was uncalled for."

"And entirely impossible."

He was almost smiling. Nancy patted his arm. "Well, give me your card, I'll talk things over with..." Ned raised his eyebrows, returning her question, "Brian, and we'll get together some weekend." She paused, and smiled. "It'll be fun."

"I'm sure," he said lightly, and with no conviction. He patted his pockets. "And I left my cards in my other suit," he said dryly, coming up with only a ballpoint pen.

"Here," she said, offering him her hand, and he only paused a moment before taking it in his and writing his number on it. She pulled back as soon as he was finished, turning it around to read the numbers.

"Cell?"

He nodded, capping his pen.

"Work cell, or real cell?"

"Is there a difference?" he asked, reciting the old joke, and she smiled automatically. "It'll reach me."

"That's the important thing."

She changed in a gas station bathroom and drove through the night to get back home, afraid that if she stayed in the city, she'd do something she'd regret.

\--

Danielle looked so uncomfortable when the two of them arrived that Nancy wondered what Ned had promised her to get her to come. Not that he looked very comfortable, either. Danielle kept an arm around Ned at all times, and gave Nancy a grin when they were introduced. She wore an emerald on her left ring finger, but Nancy had seen Ned's family engagement ring, and knew it was a diamond. So they weren't engaged, either. She was slight, shorter than Nancy even in heels, brunette, and kept fussing with the fluttered sleeves of her top.

"It's nice to meet you."

"It's nice to finally meet you," Danielle said, and at Nancy's expression she smiled, just not quite at her. Somewhere in the vicinity of her left shoulder, Nancy guessed. "Ned's mentioned you a few times, and of course I remembered hearing about you."

The tone in her voice, intentional or not, made Nancy see herself as a fifty-year-old chain smoker who kept photo albums full of yellowed newspaper clippings and probably suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder from all the times she'd been hit on the head. Then she glanced over at Brian, who, until recently, had heard about Ned only in the lumped "and I dated in high school and college" conversation, the kind that was blurred over during first dates and promptly forgotten after. In fact, Nancy couldn't remember the names of any of Brian's past girlfriends. Or his first pet. She held onto her certainty that she knew exactly how he liked his coffee, and that made her feel better, even though she knew they'd fail the Newlywed Game.

"Right," Nancy said, giving her best grin. "So what is it that you do?" She propped her chin on her hand. She could feel Brian's gaze on her, and knew that somewhere, somehow, Danielle had hit a nerve, but she didn't care.

"I teach elementary school."

"How did you meet Ned?"

The waitress took their drink orders. Ned asked for a double scotch on the rocks and Nancy for a mai tai. Brian, as almost always, asked for a water, as did Danielle.

"I met Ned when he was involved in mentoring in the after-school program."

Nancy's gaze shot over to Ned, who shrugged a little, as though every agent had the time to mentor six year olds. The speed with which he interpreted her look shocked her for a second. Their language hadn't changed, in all the years between. He tapped his fingers on the polished tabletop, his other arm around Danielle's shoulders. Brian was keeping an eye on the game.

"And how did you two meet?" Ned asked, making his first contribution to the conversation. A stormy look lingered on Danielle's face for a fraction of a second, before her drink arrived.

"We go to the same gym," Nancy replied, giving him the true version. The version she used with everyone else was cuter and involved flirtation over the elliptical machines and a lightly sprained ankle, but she didn't feel like doing that today.

Soon she and Ned were on their second drinks and Nancy was struggling to remember why she even needed to be civil to Ned's new girlfriend, since she was getting unpleasant flashbacks to Belinda the rebound ballerina and Brad the ineffectual law student and she could feel herself slipping into that same catty role, when an enormous and horrible squeal of crashing metal came from outside. Through the plate-glass windows everyone could see, every conversation shocked into silence, a third car, then a fourth plow into the initial rear-ending. Brian was out of the booth, his napkin tossed on the table, almost before she even realized he was moving. He didn't even stop for his coat, just headed out at a dead run, already on his cell phone calling for emergency personnel. Nancy's hand immediately went to the small of her back, where she usually carried her gun, but it was in her purse; Ned was making the same sweep, although she saw the alarm settle lower into reassurance as he found his weapon where he expected it. Each caught the other's movements, and they very nearly smiled before they remembered where they were and who they were with and that it had been years since that would have been all right.

"He's a doctor," Nancy said, her voice clipped, to Danielle's open mouth and almost-spoken question.

"Isn't there something you can do?" Danielle turned to Ned to ask instead, changing direction smoothly, her delicate brows knitting together.

"We didn't learn anything more than field triage, basically," Ned said apologetically, but Nancy could detect the faintly defensive tone in his voice. "I'm sure he has everything under control."

"We?" Danielle repeated, fast on his heels. "You work with her?"

Nancy drained the rest of her drink in one long, cold sip and sat back, watching Brian move with swift competence between the cars, every other sense intimately tuned to the couple across the table.

"We don't work together."

"You said you saw her at work."

"She's..." Ned glanced over at Nancy, who almost took pity on him, but decided instead to give him the short swift nod that would effectively gag him. "She's just a consultant. And we can talk about this later."

Danielle studied Ned for a long moment, looking for any hint that he was lying, then pushed herself toward him. "I'm going to the bar."

Ned stood to let his girlfriend out, and once the two of them were alone, sank bank into his seat. "When she gets back, I think we should leave."

"We haven't even gotten our meal yet," Nancy replied, in surprise.

"I'm sure the waitress can wrap it up to go. Besides, it doesn't look like your boyfriend is going to be coming back anytime soon."

Nancy's jaw dropped. "If I didn't know you better I'd say you sounded jealous."

"Of what? He seemed really involved today," Ned said sarcastically, his face darkening.

"You sure you don't want your girlfriend picking up some retaliation fuck at the bar?" Nancy tossed back the rest of her drink, then waved her hand. "Go ahead. She's got you right where she wants you."

Ned shook his head as he took out his wallet, then tossed a few bills on the table. "I knew this was a bad idea," he muttered.

"I did too," Nancy shot back. "There was a good reason why we broke up."

"Yeah, so you could date rich doctors with the personalities of dishwater," Ned replied. "Or Frank Hardy, whichever came first."

"Right." Nancy pushed herself up out of the booth. "You didn't used to be like this."

"Neither did you," Ned tossed over his shoulder, as he walked away. He didn't look back.

\--

Four o'clock on a Saturday morning a month later. Brian had just rolled off her, making contented noises, when Nancy's cell phone rang. She rolled her eyes, thankful that at least the call hadn't come five minutes sooner. "Drew."

"We need you to get in here. Bring your overnight bag."

Nancy snapped her phone shut and just lay for a moment, as feeling returned to her toes, as Brian's breath began to even out. "Gotta go, honey," she told him, leaning over to give him a kiss before she rolled out of bed. "Sounds like it might be a while."

Brian groaned in response. "Don't make it too long, okay?"

"Sure," Nancy mock promised, as she grabbed a change of clothes and vanished into the bathroom for a three-minute shower. "Says he I don't see for days at a time."

The team already assembled when Nancy arrived, staring blankly into their styrofoam cups of weak coffee, was mostly familiar to Nancy. The man leading the briefing, who looked marginally worse for wear, gave her a nod when she entered. She returned it, heading for a chair.

"A team of FBI agents was sent to help gather intel on this man," the leader began, clicking for the slide. "He goes under the alias Ruffite, and when he surfaced, our illustrious cousins decided they were the best to go turn him. Six agents including a language expert went over." The next slide showed head shots on the group. Nancy's stomach flipped when she saw Ned's face on the bottom row. A few of the other CIA agents shot her glances.

"A source we have on the inside of a drug organization says that the team was captured by a man who thinks it's in his best interests that Ruffite never talk. We have a last known location, and we're going over there to recover as many of them as we can. With our intel, it shouldn't take too long, especially given that with every minute that passes, our likelihood of finding them alive gets closer to zero." He shook his head soberly. "The plane's waiting."

They stood and headed for the door as one, Nancy's head bowed. She and Ned hadn't spoken since their disastrous lunch, and Brian hadn't brought it up, but most of Brian's memory of that day involved holding a woman's ripped side in place while the ambulance roared up. Every time she and Brian slept together, Nancy found herself thinking of Ned's comments, with a certain satisfaction. He didn't know her, not anymore, and she and Brian may not have been perfect, but they weren't anywhere near the train wreck his own relationship was, that was for sure. It just made her angry. She wanted to punch him.

Of course, then she hadn't been sure if she'd ever see him again, but it had been different. She was damn sure that even though she would never have chosen this premature and certainly bloody death for him, it had probably found him anyway.

She shook her head, her fingertips against the double-thick glassed window as the plane took off. Given how many times they had tempted fate together, it was almost ironic that it would be without her, serving as backup on a routine mission, that he'd really put himself in danger.

\--

They raided warehouses, government housing projects, slums, whorehouses, nightclubs, for what seemed like three days solid. Every new tip, every new hint, and they rushed off with the battering rams to find emaciated, malnourished creatures blinking in the sudden light, up at them, screeching in some guttural foreign tongue Nancy didn't understand, and there was no sign, no indication at all that they still survived. Then the intel came one night that they were probably in the vacation home of the kingpin's brother, and by the time they arrived the caravan of black unmarked vans had all taken off, save one. In the back, chained to the walls, they found the leader of the FBI team, badly beaten, face practically battered beyond recognition, and another figure, scrabbling to his feet in the dark. Nancy tore her mask off as soon as she saw him, the cried warnings of her teammates fading to whispers, and she was left staring and helpless.

Ned.

\--

"He's pretty banged up."

"Yeah," Nancy agreed, pushing past the guard and letting herself into what passed for their debriefing room. Ned had a blanket over his shoulders, a cup of the abysmal coffee in his hands, his voice low as he talked to Nancy's team leader. They didn't notice her, so Nancy found a chair just outside earshot and waited, studying him.

He looked thinner than she remembered. His wrist was black and he seemed to favor it, and he kept shaking his right leg, erratic, nervous. There was blood in his hair. His shoulders quivered slightly at any sudden noise.

Then their leader sat back and Ned glanced around, visibly fighting the urge to double-take when he saw his ex-girlfriend seated, arms crossed, a few feet away.

"We're going to do our best to find the rest of your team," Nancy heard, as Warren made his last few notes and sealed the utterly sincere delivery of the lie with a firm nod. They all accepted it, because there was nothing else to do. Then they stood, and Nancy did too, and her heart started to pound.

She followed as Ned was led back to his room, and shouldered in behind him, nodding at the guard without making eye contact. Ned tossed the blanket onto the bed and put his coffee down, then glanced over at her.

"Of all the luck, for them to send you after me."

Nancy's mouth tightened, and she nodded. "Yeah. I'm sorry too."

Ned winced as he sat down on one of the beds. "Look, I can't leave while they—"

"I know," Nancy broke in softly. "And we don't have any plans to leave yet. Not that I know of. We were lucky to find you, though."

Ned nodded and clasped his hands loosely in his lap. "There won't be much left to find, soon," he muttered.

"I guess Jack already went over everything—"

"I told him everything I know," Ned said. "Everything I overheard, and it wasn't much. They're going to beat it out of the rest of the team. The only reason I don't look like Jim," and Nancy thought of the darkened puffy face of the other man in the back of that van, "is I was telling them what they wanted to hear." Off her glance, he snorted. "Total lies. But it was enough to keep us alive."

"And now that you're not there..."

Ned stood up. "Yeah. How many of you are there here? Is anyone doing anything right now?"

"We haven't stopped since we got here," Nancy shot back, hurt by his tone, by the accusation in it. "What do you think, we're just treating this like some fucking vacation?"

"You wouldn't know how."

This was familiar territory, at least. Nancy put her hands on her hips. "Is this what this is all about?"

Ned snorted, his own face dark. "Yeah. I managed to get myself kidnapped, tortured, and starved for half a week just so you could come over here and we could argue some more. You're like a damn bad penny."

"You just don't like the fact that I had to come over here and save your ass," she shouted back. "You never did. You never wanted me doing this kind of work and it just gets right under your skin."

"Sure," he nodded sarcastically. "I joined the FBI, I did all this, just for you."

Despite the look on his face, despite everything, a realization struck her through the hot beat of her blood in her ears, urging her on. "You never wanted to do something like this when we were together," she said, slowly, suspicious.

"Yeah, but I saw the guys you liked," he replied. "You liked this. Except I ended up some fucking language expert who gets to hold a gun once every six months for my recertification and you're with Mr. Wonderful. You stuck up, hypocritical bitch."

She stepped in close to him, angry again. "If you weren't already hurt I'd punch you in the mouth."

"Why are you letting that stop you?" he shot back, leaning down, in her face, and his breath was hot on her skin.

Then she felt his mouth on hers.

\--

She knew that if she stopped at all, to think, to pull back and ask, it would just end, so she didn't, and even though she beat her own best record for stripping naked and even though Ned had an injured wrist, he managed to beat her to it.

He was rougher than she remembered, rougher with his kisses, with the urgency of his touches, but then he had been a virgin like her and everything they had done was hesitant and slow. His kisses were so hard they hurt, his tongue slipping over hers, and then he backed her hard into the dresser and she rebounded against him, noticing that the surface was at just the right height. Ten seconds later and she had boosted herself onto it, wrapping her legs around Ned's waist, pulling him in close, her hands buried in his hair as he kissed her again.

There was no foreplay, no delicacy to it, none at all, not when he curved his fingers up hard between her thighs, breathing in her gasp, and found her already wet. He angled her hips until she was balanced just on the very edge, sandwiched between his hips and the lip of the dresser, then thrust his cock hard between her thighs, and she gasped, arching. He pulled back and she bit him, her knees tightening to pull him back to her, and she could feel his hands at her ass as he began to find his rhythm. He bit her too, on the shoulder, his cock slick with her and thrusting smooth even though she had been with (someone else, she could not let herself think of it) for so long and her usual partner was definitely a couple inches shorter and definitely not so thick. She moaned as the apex of one thrust pushed his cock against her g-spot, the place only he had been able to find, of all of them, and she started to buck under him, insistent, frantic. He pushed deeper and deeper with his every thrust, quicker, she could hear his guttural speechless sounds of encouragement and approval, and then he was flush to her hips, her legs open wide as they would go, and she sobbed out something meaningless as she forced her eyes to open, forced herself to look at his face as with one last quick vibration of a thrust they came.

"Fuck," she breathed, her heart pounding, as her orgasm clenched him tight inside her. She closed her eyes, her damp shoulders falling back against the mirror as she let her hands drift down his arms, feeling the familiar bonelessness that came with her release. She put her hands over his, his palms braced on the dresser at either side of her hips, and after one last pulse he pulled out of her and she arched, groaning. She let her legs drop, releasing him, but couldn't bring herself to close them just yet.

When he pulled his hands out from under hers, she swallowed against her dry throat and blinked up at him. He stood in front of her, still so close that his hips were between her spread legs, and she couldn't make herself move. She licked her lips, but there was nothing to say.

"Who's better?" he murmured, gruffly.

She blinked, unable to understand him, then smiled wickedly. "You," she said. "Always you."

He smiled, proud, his gaze flicking down to her bare breasts as she pushed herself back up. "Good," he replied.

\--

They went out the next day on a new lead, one as fruitless as nearly all the rest had been. None of the workers on the factory floor had any clue what they were talking about. The black vans didn't go through traffic cameras or show up in used car lots. Nancy came back, exhausted, to find Ned on the treadmill in the rudimentary hotel gym, his gait easy.

"Sure you should be doing that?"

Ned stopped the machine, shooting her a mild glance as he grabbed a spare towel and wiped off his gleaming face. "I want to be ready," he replied, his voice hard. "I want to go in with you."

Nancy opened her mouth to tell Ned that there was no possible way Warren would ever let that happen, that he wouldn't risk the life of one of their two successful reacquisitions in another mission. But that was a fight she'd let him take on, she decided, and closed her mouth.

She followed Ned back to his room, feeling like a lost puppy, and it took everything she had not to blush as the guard's gaze followed her all the way in. No one had said anything about it yet, but she was sure he'd been able to hear the dresser slamming into the wall the night before. She was the only woman on the team and Ned was her ex. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out.

He went directly to the shower, leaving a line of discarded clothes behind him, and Nancy followed him in, watching him turn the water on. They hadn't said anything about the night before, and she had left soon after, then stared up at the ceiling in her own room for hours.

Brian hadn't called since. That made it easier.

He didn't say anything when she joined him in the shower. They took turns with everything, although she made sure she was facing him when she shampooed her hair, and she watched his eyes as they stayed locked to her swaying breasts the entire time. By the time she had intentionally dropped the soap, bending away from him to pick it up, his cock, like the rest of him, was at full attention.

She had never cheated on a boyfriend before. Her flirtation with Frank Hardy, compared to her interaction with Ned, was a church picnic. And Brian had been very good to her, and Brian had kept her satisfied, and she had always known in the back of her head that their relationship worked because it had been in small doses since the beginning. She'd never brought up marriage. That magnitude of mistake should be saved for situations involving nuclear weapons.

Her hair was still wet, moisture cooling as it dried in the seams of her elbows, the shadow of her navel, as Ned laid her down and kissed her, hard, her legs already coming up to wrap around his waist as he knelt over her. He nipped at her earlobe, his large hands sliding down to cup her ass and shift the angle of her hips under his, and she gently bit his neck. He made a pleased sound and she thought, in the space of a breath, to mark him, and she knew what she was doing as she sucked the deep bruise of a hickey against his shoulder. His cock jumped a little, its length against her slit, and she squirmed against it.

Then he trailed kisses down, all the way down, teasing her nipples into hard points with his tongue, his hands spanning her hips, curling under her ass. He nipped a line from her navel, slowly, down, and she pushed her legs apart, the soles of her feet pressed together, her mouth already open as she panted in the dark.

He flicked her clit gently with the tip of his tongue and she arched underneath him, eyes rolling back. He stroked the sensitive flesh there between, with his fingertips, with his mouth and the briefest glance of his teeth, and when he rubbed the stubbled end of his chin against her clit she gasped and moaned his name, burying her fingers in his hair, urging him on. He kissed the insides of her thighs and dipped his tongue between her legs, then led her knees up and draped them over his shoulders. He kept bringing her to the edge but not quite letting her come, not quite, even when she tightened her legs and her fingers and tried to force him, even when she ground her hips up, seeking his five o'clock shadow, the rasp of texture against her arousal. He slipped his fingers up inside her, curving them, and she jerked her hips up, fucking herself against them, groaning with each stroke of his chin or tongue over her clit. Her toes curled and she could just feel it, the unbearable tension that twanged higher and higher just before she came.

He pushed himself up suddenly and her legs fell open, off his shoulders, as he shot forward and slammed himself into her, and she arched again, whimpering as he thrust the full length of his cock in, one hard smooth motion that filled her completely, shocking her orgasm to its first spasm inside her and she met his every thrust with one of her own, groaning even as he pushed her hips into a higher angle and found her g-spot, and then she was screaming, fully screaming, her orgasm making his every movement, every tiny movement burn her alive. He was gasping her name, his hands pressing hard into her ass as she pushed herself up from her heels, gritting her teeth, her face twisted in the horrible pleasure of it, the exquisite pain. When he came she almost sobbed in relief, feeling him slow inside her, and she let her hips sink back down to the bed, gasping with every inch he moved.

"You've learned a few things," she groaned, her eyes still closed. She swallowed, panting.

"Yeah," he replied, his breath hot against her temple. He rolled off her, leaving her sprawled on the bed, and she pulled her legs together, savoring the last weak clench between her thighs.

"I'm gonna sleep in here tonight," she murmured, pulling herself to him on the bed, nestling her head on his shoulder.

"They'll talk," he replied, sounding as distant, as exhausted as she.

"Fuck 'em," she replied, and when he wrapped his arm around her back her throat was suddenly thick with tears.

\--

After dinner the next night, after a horrible day that left Nancy and the rest of her team feeling irritated and miserable, she followed him back to his room, not bothering to disguise it, because she just didn't care. Ned kissed her neck as she unbuttoned her shirt, then reached for his pants. When she realized he was giving her a hickey, she squirmed against him, threading her fingers through his belt loops and tugging his hips to hers.

"Nan," he mumbled against her neck.

"Hmm," she whispered, unbuttoning his pants.

"Will you do something for me?"

She chuckled. "We're going for some recon at midnight," she replied. "Anything you want to do until then is fine by me."

He opened his palm. "Can I watch you with this?" he whispered, his voice husky and deep, hot against her ear.

She pulled back, her shirt open, bra still on beneath, to see a chubby red plastic L-shape in his hand. As she watched, it jumped in his palm and started vibrating.

"Oh," she said. Then she looked up at his eyes, and then she looked down at his cock, which was already hard. "What makes you think I'd know what to do with that?"

"The fact that we've been apart for years and I'm still the best fuck you ever had," he replied, then pushed it into her hand. "Come on," he pleaded, pushing her bra cup down to expose her breast, and he flicked her nipple gently. She jumped slightly against him. "It would be really hot."

She closed her eyes, trying to block out the insistent rush of hormones, the warmth that spread over her skin at his every touch. "Tell me this is new," she said, her voice shaking a little. She was already wet, damn him. "That you haven't used it with— anyone else."

"Just you, baby," he whispered, taking her hand and leading it down between her legs. She shivered as the vibration carried through her jeans.

"Hope you have a lot of batteries."

He had her lay down on the bed, naked, with the bedside light on, and she made him check the curtains before she agreed. He tossed the covers down and she sighed, feeling very exposed as she stretched out on her back. She glanced down at his erection.

"Feel free to jump in anytime."

He shook his head. "It's not sexy if I do. It's sexy for you to show me how you like to be touched, what turns you on."

Nancy chuckled, still nervous. "I think you have a damn good idea of what turns me on."

Ned just smiled and sat back. "Pretend I'm not here."

"Look, if you bring in a strap-on or something tomorrow, we're going to need to talk," she told him mock-sternly, tracing the vibrator over her right nipple, watching his rapt gaze follow it. "Besides, what does it matter," she continued softly, knowing he wasn't paying attention to what she was saying anymore as she flicked it on, arching as she ran it over her sensitive skin. "We'll be gone soon anyway."

She opened her legs and he watched almost hungrily as she laid the switched-off vibrator on her belly and ran the planes of her palms over her tight nipples. Her hips squirmed as she rolled the tips of her breasts between her fingers, pinching them, her feet shifting against the sheets. She picked up the toy, holding it by its longer end, still off, and traced the shorter blunt end against the seams of her inner thighs, down to run it slowly just over her closed slit.

"Open your legs," Ned whispered, hypnotized by her, staring below her waist, and she obeyed him, bringing her bent knees up and then opening them slowly. She worried one nipple with finger and thumb as she deftly switched the vibrator back on, then gently slipped it down between her legs, jumping as it found her clit. She rubbed the longer end in shallow circles over the wet button of flesh and arched into her own touch, groaning. When she closed her eyes she could still feel his gaze on her, could practically feel how hard his cock was as he watched her, but she didn't care. She brought the hand flicking her own nipple down to gently press the flesh apart, then held the shorter blunt end against her clit as she slipped the longer end between the press of wet flesh, holding it there as she bucked against it. She started panting, louder than the soft buzzing, her hips moving in shallow circles to find the right angle and rhythm, but the pressure wasn't enough, so she flipped over onto her stomach and straddled the vibrator, holding it in place between her legs so she could thrust her hips against it, fucking it. She let out a low, guttural moan, her breasts bouncing with every jolt of her hips, her eyes sown shut in pleasure, and did a full split, her knees spread wide apart, fucking the vibrator, her toes curling. She collapsed to the bed as her orgasm began and built, the buzz muffled between her legs, and with every jerk of her hips it shifted against her clit and she groaned in pleasure, her fist closing against the sheet. When her climax was over she pulled her knees under her, thrusting her ass up in the air, and slid the vibrator from underneath her, then switched it off.

She turned and opened her eyes to see Ned furiously jacking off next to her, his eyes almost closed, and she reached for him. "No," she murmured, circling his hips with her arms to pull him close to her, and he knelt on the bed so that his cock was level with her mouth. She kissed the tip of it, then swirled her tongue around it, palming the vibrator in her other hand as she gently cupped his balls in her hand. Then she switched the vibrator on and slowly, gently traced it up the underside of his shaft, and he buried his hands in her hair, urging her to finish him.

She took him into her mouth and the vibrator, still on, hummed in the palm of her hand as she traced its blunt end against the small of his back, gently drawing it down the cleft of his ass. He shivered and thrust more insistently into her mouth, and she moved back and forward again, letting the tip of his cock trace against her tongue, as she slowly, gently, led the vibrator, still wet from being inside her, to thrum just at the rim of his ass.

He came suddenly, hard, his thrust so violent that it practically slammed her head into the wall behind her, practically woke her gag reflex. She pressed the vibrator against his ass a little more and he squirmed against it, panting, before he pulled back and let her breathe again, her eyes wide, and he pushed her hands away. He let himself fall onto his side facing her, his expression in shadow from the bedside lamp, but she could still hear his labored breath.

"Did you just...?"

"Yeah," she gasped in response. "You seemed to get into it."

"Yeah," he panted back. then shook his head. "Um. Did you say something about a strap-on earlier? Because..."

Nancy shook her head, waving her hand. "I'm going to wash my mouth out," she told him, scrambling off the bed.

"Because I think one cock is plenty," he called to her, and she spat her entire mouthful of Listerine across the smeared mirror before she laughed until she couldn't breathe.

He brought the vibrator to the shower with them, because it was waterproof and his new toy, and when he fucked her he tucked it between her legs so that it moved against her clit while he thrust inside her, and she came again, arching, gasping, whimpering his name. Whenever she tried to pull it away or squirm away from it he just shoved it back in place and she came twice, three times more, clawing at him, her every nerve raw, pinned between him and the shower wall.

When it was almost time for her to go they were lying in bed, still naked after their shower, wrapped in the same damp rough standard-issue hotel towels, and she raked her hand through her wet hair before pushing herself out of bed. "I'll come back to you, when we get back," she said, as she found her bra and panties on the floor. Then she bit her lip. "If you want."

He was sitting up, pulling on his boxers, when she turned back to him. "I want to go with you," he said, his voice low and deadly serious.

"Ned," she sighed, and came over, and cupped her palms around his face. "There's no way Warren will let you go. You and Jim are all we have. And if something happens to you..."

"Then let me talk to him," Ned demanded. "Or take me with you and don't tell him."

"Ned—"

"It's either that or I follow you on my own," he said. "Without backup or radio."

She sighed, refusal on her lips.

"I know them," Ned said, his voice low. "I know who you're dealing with. So let me do this."

\--

They found them all that night, during the recon, and with Ned fighting beside her, Nancy could feel herself sinking into a depression she held off only by concentrating on where the next shot should land, where the next course needed to be. When they went home, well, they hadn't talked about what would happen then. So what if they'd had mind-blowing sex. A lot of mind-blowing sex.

They took all four FBI agents to a base hospital and Ned stayed with them, of course, and Nancy went back to the hotel and stood under the shower in her own room, washing herself mechanically, smelling smoke in her hair. Her face was like stone.

She changed into her pajamas and stared up at the ceiling, not sleeping, just remembering the way he had tasted on her tongue and remembering how he'd never said he loved her, but she remembered too that before, when it was new and their relationship had just become this enormous complicated mess, the act itself had been the declaration. The feeling of him inside her had been its affirmation.

She curled up on her side and wondered what she was going to say to the man she lived with when she came home, with Ned's hickey fresh on her neck.

\--

In the end, she didn't have to say any of it, didn't have to explain. She came home without warning, too exhausted and confused to have attempted a conversation with him, to find lipstick on the pillow on her side of the bed. He wasn't there, which was just as well, because it was his apartment. She smiled grimly to herself and collected as many empty boxes and suitcases as she could find, and when Brian keyed his way in, she was calmly sorting through their album collection.

"Hey," he said slowly, closing the door behind him.

"Tell your girlfriend I don't wear that shade of lipstick," she said, not looking up.

It was a day later, when Nancy was holed up in Bess's apartment, circling home-for-rent ads, that her phone rang. She picked it up fully expecting it to be Brian, who had not uttered so much as a single word of apology, but that just meant he hadn't yet discovered that she'd managed to get away with a few of his first-pressings, as well.

"Hey."

"Hey," Nancy said slowly, freezing still. "What's up?"

"Danielle kicked me out."

"That's terrible," Nancy replied, not feeling torn up about it at all. "What happened?"

"She didn't believe that a grenade could have caused this mysterious hickey on my shoulder. By the way, she says hello. And that you're a whore."

"Were you secretly taping us during that last time, or was that just wild conjecture on her part?"

Ned chuckled. "I haven't stopped thinking about you."

"Me either," Nancy sighed. "Although I have to warn you, I think my father's getting wary about the men I date. Do you have honorable intentions, Mr. Nickerson?"

"The worst," Ned replied. "I want you to suck me off while you're fingering yourself. I want to fuck you in the ass while you're taking a dildo. I want you to ride me while I spank you until you come."

Nancy's eyes were already closed, her breath shallow. "How's your afternoon looking?"

Ned laughed under his breath. "God, I love you."

She shook her head. "Come to Sunday dinner at my father's house and maybe I'll get something waxed before I see you again."

"The carrot and the stick," Ned mused. "Maybe something Brazilian waxed?"

"Have you been reading Cosmo since we broke up?"

"Are you complaining?"

"Definitely not," Nancy purred. "Yes or no, Ned. Sunday dinner."

"Will this make us official again?"

"As long as you promise to never, ever tell my father what you did to me while we were gone."

"What about what you did to me?" Ned laughed.

Nancy smiled. "Think we can make it work this time?"

Ned was quiet for a minute. "Yeah," he said softly. "I think we can."

"Then..." Nancy raked a hand through her hair. "Then I think I love you too."


End file.
